For adventure-seeking Harvard students, a typical summer thrill ride can range from navigating among the financial sharks in New York City to tracking down the biological secrets of binobo chimps in the darkest rain forest. For Karin J. Alexander ‘02, a social studies concentrator in Lowell House, adventure was getting attacked by a lion in her homeland, Zimbabwe.
“I turn to see a young lion, not more than hip height from the ground-stalking me...I’m vaguely panicked at this point,” says Karin Jane Alexander `02, who was conducting thesis research this summer. Karin and her fiance, Adam, were invited to tea with a distant relative who runs a wildlife orphanage outside of Bulawayo, a large city in the south of the country. Karin stepped out of the car to open the gate, and Adam continued driving up a long driveway. Karin closed the gate behind her, began to wander through a garden leading to the house, and felt a “presence” behind her.
Knowing that if she ran, the lion would think she were prey, she walked quickly, wishing the house were closer than 500 meters away. The lion picked up speed and growled in a “low guttural manner.” “Next thing I know, I’m on the floor, face down-with something patting my head quite vigorously,” says Karin. Meanwhile, Adam and her relative watched with amusement from the comfort of the house. Adam stayed calm once the relative (who in the past was nearly eaten by one of his domesticated lions) assured him that this lion was actually tame. Too bad Karin didn’t know the lion was tame. “The lion bounded up on me and leapt on me from behind, knocking me face first into the dirt and proceeding to paint my head playfully and lick my neck,” says Karin, who was anxiously expecting “teeth and pain.”
Retrospectively, Karin’s attitude is almost nonchalant. But at the moment, she feared being hurt physically. “I did think of maiming. I knew that their paws are huge and can snap necks without even trying. But I was also close enough to hear the mirth from the onlookers...it was all very fleeting,” she reports.
Karin was quickly extracted from beneath the lion, named Mano, who joined them for tea. According to Karin, Mano “subsequently stayed close to me throughout tea, lying at my feet like a cuddly bear.” Karin cautions us never to run in the sight of lions. Will do. If she has another encounter with a feline friend, Karin will try to remain still. Karin has one more comment: “It would have been great of someone to alert us to the presence of the lion in the garden.” We’d have to agree.
